Link-17

Link-17 is an indigenous military tactical data link (TDL) system developed by Pakistan and used primarily by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF), allowing fighter aircraft, airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft, ground radars, and other assets to exchange tracking and targeting data securely and in near-real time. An advanced iteration of the system, known as Link-17 SkyGuard, has since been developed by Pakistan's National Aerospace Science and Technology Park (NASTP) as a more capable successor architecture. Link-17 was developed to network Pakistan's mixed fleet of Chinese-, Western-, and domestically-produced platforms without depending on a foreign-controlled data link system.

Link-17 became the subject of wider public attention after the 2025 India–Pakistan conflict, when Pakistani officials and Western news agencies described the data link as central to a "kill chain" used during the air battle of 7 May 2025.

Overview

Link-17 is a secure, jam-resistant network that allows connected military platforms to exchange sensor data, tracks, and voice traffic in near-real time. Link-17 performs this role for the PAF, linking fighter aircraft such as the JF-17 Thunder and Chengdu J-10, ground-based radars, and AEW&C aircraft such as the Saab 2000-based Erieye and the earlier ZDK-03 Karakoram Eagle.

Link-17 was designed as a "push the picture" network, in which a sensor asset — such as an AEW&C aircraft — broadcasts a shared tactical picture to networked "shooter" assets. This lets a fighter such as the JF-17 draw on the longer-range radar coverage of an AEW&C aircraft while keeping its own radar switched off, reducing its exposure to enemy detection. The original Link-17 has been characterized as a "passive" system in this respect: it distributes sensor data to a human operator, who must still interpret it and choose a course of action, rather than directly and automatically cueing a weapon in flight. This distinguishes it from a full Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC), in which off-board sensors can directly guide a missile fired from another platform.

The Pakistan Navy separately fields an interoperable data link known as Link-Green, developed by the Pakistani firm Stingray Technologies. Global Industrial & Defence Solutions (GIDS), which markets the system internationally, states that Link-Green has been in service with the Pakistan Navy since 2018 and, as of 2026, is installed on 16 Pakistan Navy platforms spanning surface, subsurface, land-based, and airborne units.

The Link-Green can interoperate with Link-17-equipped PAF aircraft and AEW&C platforms.

Technical characteristics

Pakistan has not published detailed technical specifications for Link-17. Open-source analysis infers that it uses a time-division multiple access (TDMA) architecture with rapid frequency-hopping spread spectrum, encrypted messaging, and standardised message sets for track data, weapons coordination, and text or voice traffic, giving it low-probability-of-intercept and low-probability-of-detection characteristics. The PAF's Erieye AEW&C fleet functions as a key sensor "node" in the network, fusing radar tracks and distributing a shared air picture to fighters and ground controllers, with a broadside detection range cited at roughly 350–450 km.

Development and history

According to the PAF's own official history, the requirement for an indigenous tactical data link (TDL) was recognized after the service identified a deficiency in this capability. In response, an indigenous TDL was developed that provided a "Recognised Air Picture" around the aircraft, enhancing pilot situational awareness and increasing survivability. Early applications extended beyond manned aircraft, with the system integrated into unmanned aerial vehicles to transmit real-time imagery, and the capability was used during domestic law-enforcement operations, where suspects tracked by UAVs were subsequently engaged by strike forces from the air and ground. This work predates 2013, and the effort was accompanied by parallel investment in information security, including a Directorate of Cyber Warfare tasked with protecting the network.

Link-17 was developed as an indigenous data link, motivated in large part by the risk that a foreign supplier could restrict or withdraw access to an imported system during a political dispute. Its existence was first widely reported by the defence publication Quwa in April 2016, after a monitor labelled "Link-17" was shown in PAF footage of the Combat Commanders School at PAF Base Mushaf. Quwa noted that the PAF had "let the existence of Link-17 slip on numerous occasions" prior to that point.

Pakistani officials have described Link-17 as fully indigenous. In remarks at a Sanober Institute roundtable on Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos, former PAF Chief of Air Staff Sohail Aman stated that "Link 17 is something that we developed our own selves."

From its early integration, Link-17 was fitted to the JF-17 Thunder, giving the domestically co-produced fighter a network-centric capability that let it draw on the extended radar coverage of AEW&C aircraft for beyond-visual-range engagements, including "lock-on after-launch" use of the SD-10 air-to-air missile. Analysts noted the system's core design was intended to be scalable beyond the PAF, with the potential to extend to the Pakistan Army and Pakistan Navy, and to additional platforms such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), armoured vehicles, and munitions. Link-17 has been integrated with the Pakistan Army's Z-10 attack helicopter fleet and considered for use with Pakistani UAVs such as the Burraq.

By the 2020s, Link-17 formed the backbone of the PAF's data-sharing architecture, connecting the JF-17 fleet, J-10C fighters, and the PAF's F-16 fleet with the Erieye AEW&C fleet and ground-based radars, using bridging gateways understood to be hosted on AEW&C platforms and ground terminals to unify mixed formations onto a common tactical picture.

Link-17 SkyGuard

Link-17 SkyGuard is described by Pakistani sources as an upgraded, more capable iteration of the original Link-17 architecture. It has been developed by the ACAST & Avionics Division at NASTP's "Alpha" cluster in Rawalpindi, which describes the system as "a comprehensive ecosystem of technologies, products and services" intended to serve as a force multiplier for network-centric warfare. The division states that Link-17 SkyGuard is tested at an in-house facility called IDEVS (Integrated Dynamic Evaluation and Validation System), which has also been used to train PAF personnel.

Defense analysts characterise the SkyGuard variant as "a meaningful improvement" over the original Link-17 architecture, chiefly in terms of interoperability and bandwidth between PAF platforms, but stop short of describing it as a generational leap comparable to data link architectures fielded by other major powers. According to this assessment, a further generational advance in Pakistani data link capability remains a development priority, potentially pursued in collaboration with Turkey, whose own next-generation data link programme is being developed alongside the Bayraktar Kızılelma unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV).

Combat use: the 2025 India–Pakistan conflict

Link-17 gained international attention after the air battle of 7 May 2025 during the 2025 India–Pakistan conflict, in which the PAF claimed to have shot down several Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft, including at least one French-made Rafale.

A Reuters investigation published on 2 August 2025, based on interviews with eight Pakistani and two Indian officials, reported that Pakistan had assembled a "kill chain" — a multi-domain network linking air, ground, and space sensors — that included "a Pakistani-developed system, Data Link 17", which connected Chinese-origin military hardware such as the J-10C and its PL-15 air-to-air missile with other equipment, including the Swedish-made Erieye AEW&C aircraft. According to the report, this network let the J-10C fighters fly with their own radars switched off while receiving a radar picture from the Erieye, reducing the risk of the J-10Cs being detected before firing.

The Dawn newspaper separately reported that No. 15 Squadron ("Cobras"), flying the J-10C, was formally credited by the PAF with shooting down six IAF aircraft during the engagement, using PL-15 missiles. A separate report in The Nation described the PAF's Air Headquarters operations room, from which Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Baber Sidhu was said to have directed the battle using a live, wraparound tactical display drawing on the PAF's networked sensors.

Debate over AWACS-guided missile claims

A specific claim that circulated widely after the conflict that PAF AEW&C aircraft had directly guided PL-15 missiles to their targets in mid-flight, has been disputed by some defense analysts. The earliest framing of the engagement came from the Chinese industry publication China Space News, which on 12 May 2025 described the kill chain in abstract terms, as a weapon "launched by 'A', guided by 'B', and hitting the target assigned by 'C'", without naming a specific data link. This account was subsequently elaborated in English-language reporting, notably by Air & Space Forces Magazine, which cited Michael Dahm of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies describing a sequence in which a ground radar illuminated the target, a J-10C fired at range, and an AEW&C aircraft "used a midcourse datalink to update and guide the missile" to the target.

Writing a year after the battle, Quwa traced this specific AWACS-to-missile guidance claim and found that it relied on China's XS-3 high-bandwidth data link, a system that has not been exported to Pakistan and which is distinct from Link-17. Quwa noted that the PAF itself, in interviews conducted by journalist Alan Warnes after the conflict, described its data link architecture only as operating in "near real-time" — language interpreted as acknowledging latency that would be incompatible with true real-time, in-flight missile guidance from an AEW&C node. Quwa's assessment was that what the PAF demonstrably possessed was effective interoperability among its fighter fleet — track handoff and shared situational awareness sufficient for cooperative engagements using each aircraft's own fire-control radar — rather than a full AWACS-to-missile guidance capability.

Future development

A 2025 defence-industry analysis argued that Pakistan will eventually need a data link system beyond Link-17 to support planned unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), particularly stealthy platforms intended for deep-strike and SEAD missions. Such a system would need to shift between a "vocal", high-bandwidth mode for networked operations and a low-probability-of-intercept "silent" mode for penetrating contested airspace, a requirement the original Link-17 architecture was not designed to meet.

Separate Quwa analysis on Pakistan's proposed loyal-wingman UCAV concepts has assumed that any such drone would need the ability to connect to Pakistan's data link protocols, so that it could receive high-level commands from crewed fighters such as the JF-17 and function as an additional network node.

See also

• C4ISR
• Link-16
• Link-ZA

External links

• "Link-17" – Pakistan's homegrown data-link system, Quwa
• NASTP ACAST & Avionics Division
• Link Green (Tactical Data Link), GIDS

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